A primary teacher and their sporadic views on technology in education, the world and life in general.

10 entries from November 2003

I am taking a course on how to use flash at the moment.So far I have learnt how to make text appear on the page at different times.I must add though that I have discovered a site called flashkit that has a plethora of tutorials within it.

Thanks to this I have managed to make a creature appear to fly across the countryside !!

I will be posting my flash movie attempts in my own space on the Teachesr Portal soon - keep a look out for them.

Quick meeting this morning to discuss the ideas for the project. Went down well. Yesterday I emailed an artist who specialises in the type of images that we are looking for.Today they mailed back giving approval to use them - fantastic news :-))

Just got a few more things to do and then I can working on the site design, worksheets and guides, and get into some schools so that they can start to create the content.

Just a quick word about the differences between working in a classroom, and being in an office environment.

I didn't realise until recently just how isolated teaching in a classroom actually is.

Unlike in an office, there is little chance to speak to another adult, unless you are able to grab a few minutes free during break or lunch. Mind you (and this is where all the teachers will sit nodding their heads in agreement with me) how often does a teacher find a few free minutes to rest or do their own thing ?

Working in the office is very sociable. Yes, there is a lot - a heck of lot - of work to get through, but there are people to ask if you come up against a problem.

I'm not sure whether those who have not been in a classroom really understand what it is actually like.

Maybe there ought to be a 'National Swap jobs with a teacher week'. It would be an interesting experiment to see how, for instance, a company director, a bus driver or a factory worker would get on on their own with 30 little children around them for 6 days.

Today I begin working for 3 days a week as the digital teacher in residence, rather than just the one day that I have so far been working.That gives me much more time to get to work on the Teachers Portal database - and do I need it !! I need to create a table for each literacy resource in the TP - that's 33 at the present time - and then once they are created just drop them into a pre made web template that will follow the design on the main TP site.Well, that is the idea because so far trying to add the tables into the template has very stressful.Firstly once the tables were added the pages would not save as html (web), they were saving as templates. We did eventually solve this, and it was (ahem, whoops !) my fault :-))Then once I could use the templates none of the images or text styles that should have been added to the page wanted to appear. The solution to this problem................to manually alter the code for each image within the template.

Who said technology made life easier !!...........

This database has taken a lot of work so far and we don't even have it completed, but we will get there. Of that I am sure. Just wait for the celebratory posting when it goes live.

Nothing to do with teaching, just a post after FACup action and a pleasing win for my team, Notts County.Will we win in the next round and make it through to the big names ?Mind you, more importantly than that - will we still be around to play any third round, or other, matches ?

It's getting very close to the last chance deadline, and still there is no sign of a solution to rescue the club.

Maybe I ought to set up a paypal account and ask people to donate money into it to save the club. What chances do I have to raise £3m before December 9th...................

Well, what a nice way to end the day after a day of swimming lessons, bonfire safety playscripts and dance lessons in the classroom.

After arriving home there was an email waiting from the Parents Information Network asking permission to list the school website on their website (www.pin.org.uk). In their own words;

What can I say..........its nice to know that people are watching the website, and find it useful.

This primary school site has hidden treasure in amongst the usual school notices and timetables - interactive stories for visitors to enjoy. There are stories which are different each time they are read depending on the reader’s choices, stories with randomly generated choices and hyperlinked stories where the reader chooses which way to turn to move through the virtual setting. There are also descriptions of how the stories were created by the children at the school, so visitors can learn to make their own. There is a huge amount of content on the site, some related to the day to day life of the school and some more general learning resources like quizzes and information banks that could give valuable support to home users curious about the work displayed and how it was done. There is also a games section called Activities and a great school newspaper.